User Ratings & Reviews

This is stop #9 of 14 brewpubs for my wife and I on this one week vacation and pub crawl. We've been here several times before when visiting relatives in the area (it's a nice family-style restaurant) but have not done a review. This is definitely a restaurant that makes their own beer more so than it being a brewpub.

We have always found the beers to be above average, although none have ever impressed us as being notable. This visit was no different. The beers are well made to style, and I have never felt that any were just average, nor were any brewing flaws ever detected. Their styles are mostly middle-of-the-road, although I have seen examples of seasonal flavored selections.

If you want to go to a restaurant with the in-laws and you are the only person who wants to enjoy a craft beer, this is your place to go.

Atmosphere is up and down. It's a beutiful modern looking sports bar. Well decorated, but it lacks some style being so corporate looking. Not a place I would want to hang out often, but decent that it was close to my hotel.

Food was the best thing about the place. Above avg pub food, Most people I was with enjoyed there selections. I sampled the porter and stout and they were both not really good. Just avg homebrew like beers. Nothing crazy. I ordered a Jai Lai on draft and they have a decent Belgian list, so I got a Petrus. Overall, decent place if you are near by.

Fully visible as a stand alone building along Park Boulevard, the main entry was a revolving door (!) in center with a take-out entrance to the left. A wide curved archway sat above the m.d.s. center with the bar area left and the extensive restaurant area right. The polished dark marble bar fronted a beautiful polished wood back bar which also held a worthy selection of Belgian imports. The back wall, left to right, showcased the brewhouse; a mural of grain for brewing being harvested; the lavs down a pathway; a waitress station; a few booths; and framed photographs, painting prints and mirrors. The far right wall had windows with Venetian blinds overlooking ... the parking lot. Oh well. Ashley was our attentive but unobtrusive server. The restaurant area was a seal of booth and table seating. Exposed ducting, ceiling fans throughout.

When was the last time YOU pooh-poohed a chain brewpub? Get offa mine!

Stopped by this place on a recent trip to Indian Rock beach. The atmosphere is pretty nice, they have a bar to the left some show tanks in the back and the dining resturant to the right. The quality of the place has a nice touch to it, I ordered the beer sampler and was shocked at what I recieved. The sampler consisted of 9 beers all about 5 oz. Blonde,Pale, Porter, RIS, Hefe, Red ale, nut brown ale. I had low expectations for the beer going into this place but I was blown away. The pale ale was simply amazing, the Hefe was good and the porter was above average, the porter was also on nitro. The service was downright horrid, I asked the waiter what other beers they had on tap other than the house and he said Guiness only. I was shocked cause I seen tap handles for Lindemans, Seadog, St. Arnolds, Highland. The waiter had no clue. After reading other reviews I never knew that the beer was Brewed by St. Arnolds, they do make some tasty beer. Overall I wasn't expecting much but the beer and food really blew me away. You must try the pale ale it is really that good.

Finally a decent place, close to home, with decent food! It isn't on par with Tampa Bay Brewing Co, but few are. This place is new, and along with that comes clean, trendy, and well-decorated.

Although they don't have a brewery inside this location, BJ's beers distributed here are brewed by St Arnolds Brewery in Texas, and they also offer some of the St Arnolds beers as well. I've yet to have a beer here that I truly dislike. They don't brew anything that is unique, but their beers are better than we expected, and as stated previously they are far and above better than the other chain "Hops" that was a major failure as a brewpub.

The selection is always decent and they have a special or seasonal selection offered as well. They also have a menu of Belgian offerings, and a separate little beer menu for those. Why don't more brewpubs create a proper beer menu? Who knows, but it works well when they do.

The servers are mostly new people and not beer enthusiasts, and it shows. We have made over 10 visits and have yet to find anyone with any depth of beer knowledge. In one visit I had to teach the bartender girl what she had on tap. They are getting better however, but the server the other day stumbled when asked what special brews were being offered. They really need to focus on making their staff understand the basis of their theme... THE BEER. If they just gave it a bit more focus it could be a good experience.

The food has always been good to excellent. Fish Tacos are very good, period. We've also had the pot roast, and all it needed was more gravy. We are in the south here, and everything needs more gravy! I always get the wedge salad as well, with blue cheese dressing, bacon bits, and some tomato chunks. We've never had a bad meal at this location.

Don't go out of your way, but if you are near North St Petersburg, or Pinellas Park, this is the only place of its kind in the general area.

I visited BJ's shortly after it opened about 2 months ago. They had a very good crowd that evening for only their second week open with no advertising that I know of. Went not expecting much, as I knew it was part of a large brewpub chain and our past experience around here with such large chains was with Hops...enough said. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find BJ's a huge step up from the now-defunct Hops.

Interestingly, they do not actually brew their beers at this location. They are brewed at their nearest location with a brewery (Texas) and kegs are shipped to be sold here in their restaurant. At the time of my visit they offered about 8 house brews with several seasonals including a bock I found quite tasty. In addition they also had several guest taps including one offering of a Texas micro (St. Arnolds) that I've never before seen in Florida (they must be doing some creative wrangling around the Florida beverage statutes to get all these Texas beers sent here that are sold nowhere else - I guess they are in partnership with a distributor to get it done). In addition to the solid offerings on tap they also featured a number of bottled beers including a nice selection of Belgian 750's.

The food menu offered a lineup of chops/steaks/sandwiches/pizza. I had fish and chips which was good. Wasn't in the mood for pizza but the pie at a nearby table looked pretty good. My only disappointment was in the service department, as our server seemed kind of lost and that was confirmed when I asked if their beers were brewed in-house and he had to go ask someone (if ya work there and haven't noticed a brewery in the building, they're probably not brewing there, right?).

Overall I enjoyed the visit and would return again. That will be made much more likely when they open their new location soon much nearer my home in the Citrus Park area of Tampa.